Twisted Mercy (Red Team Book 4) (9 page)

“You’re his friend.”
 

He shook his head as he took a piece of melon. “We’re not friends. Far from it. I’m just useful to him.”

Feral had the lean, wary look of a street dog, hungry to belong somewhere, to someone. Maybe there was a reason Mads called him Feral. When he’d polished off the fruit, he looked around the table for anything else he might have missed.
 

“Sorry, that’s all there was.” Hope disposed of the trash, then packed the paper goods in a bag. “Mad Dog said you’d take me back to his house.”

“Yep.” Feral stood up. “We can go now, if you want.”

Feral got in the driver’s seat and swiped the trash on the passenger’s seat off to the floor. They didn’t talk during the short drive to Mads’ house. She planned to get settled as if she were really done for the night. In a few hours, when Feral wasn’t paying attention, she’d slip back to the compound. She wanted to find the boys’ school Mads had mentioned; it would be a whole lot easier to move about the WKB compound unseen at night.

She’d be back in a flash. No one would even know she’d gone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Max walked into the clubhouse after leaving Hope. The typical group of guys were scattered about the room. He looked toward the corner booth and found Pete. The president nodded at him and ordered the other guys out of the booth. Pete’s favorite prospect stood guard at the back door.

Max stopped at the bar and got a beer before joining Pete. They covered the logistics for the delivery tomorrow night. Max didn’t tell him he had a stack of radio frequency ID tags he meant to attach to the pallets of goods. The tags would enable Kit and the guys to track the goods to their various destinations. By the time the tags were discovered, Max would be long gone.

Pete gave him the numbers of the guys Hatchet usually called up for guard duty. “You trust his crew?” Max asked.

“So far. You think there’ll be problems now that Hatchet’s not the sergeant-at-arms?”

Max made a face. “You tell me. If it’s a risk, I’ll get my own crew.”

“No. Their loyalty is to the WKB, not Hatchet.”

Max stared at Pete, judging his confidence in Hatchet’s guys. “Okay.”

“You find out anything about the girl?” Pete asked.

“Only that she’s from a chop shop in Detroit.”

“The guys like having a wrench on site.”
 

“What’s the word on my pay?”

“King wants to see how you handle the delivery tomorrow.”

Max nodded. “I told you I’m not working for free. But it’s cool. I’ll give him one freebie. I haven’t quit my old job yet. If you don’t get word by the end of the week, I’ll assume he nixed the deal.”

Pete leaned back in his seat. “King’s a busy man. Don’t start trying to think for him.”

“I’m a busy man, too. It’s a helluva long ride up to AK. I’d like to do it before winter.” He tilted his beer back and took a long draw, eyeing Pete while he finished it. “I’m gonna get on the arrangements for tomorrow. Later.”

Max rode over to Hope’s garage. He parked his bike inside, hiding it from curious eyes. He stood in the dark for minute, remembering Hope working in here, the feel of her arms around him as he took her into town, the way she looked at the fire tonight, with the light playing off the sparkly skulls on her clothes.

Funny how nature put its most lethal creatures in its most beautiful packages.
 

What the hell was she doing here? What would an angel want with the ruthless men of the WKB? Max harbored a deepening desire to find the guy who sent her in here and feed him to the bikers.

On that thought, he activated his comm unit. “Greer, read me?”
 

“Loud and clear.”

“What’s the news on the girl?”

“She’s clean. The only fingerprints we have for her are from her mechanics school admittance paperwork.”

“So she’s a wrench for real.”

“Looks like it. Her name’s Hope Townsend. She’s a product of foster care. I’m having trouble finding out more about her. The trail goes cold when she was five years old.”

“What about the WKB network?”

“I’m in and stepping through their systems. As best I can tell, they’re running a couple of businesses. One is some kind of investment firm, which—get this—specializes in cryptocurrencies. I'm working on cracking their encryption. The other is a homeopathic supplement manufacturer. That data isn’t encrypted, but it’s encoded. While I can get into their databases, I can’t make sense of them. Blade and Rocco are looking over the data. Past the firewall, there’s little security set up. There are two dozen users, but not all are active.”
 

“We’re still mining what Greer’s discovered,”
Kit said, coming over the comm.
“It’s clear there’s business being run from the compound.”

“You think that’s happening in the silo somewhere? ’Cause I’ve been in almost every building, and trust me, there’s no organized anything happening above ground.”

“It is in the silo,”
Greer confirmed.
“They have a biometrics security system in place, with access codes for ten floors. Not every person can get into every floor or even every room on every floor. While their data security is lax, their physical security is intense. Maybe they think the one protects the other.”

Max grinned. “Do you have control of their security system?”

“I do.”

“This mission just got a whole lot cooler. Are you ready for tomorrow night? Pete said the shipment was happening sometime between midnight and one.”

“Affirmative. You’ll tag the dope?”
Kit asked.

“Yep. I’m going to get inside the silo again and see if I can find the section they’ve renovated. It sure wasn’t in what we saw last night.”

“Check in when you’re above ground again,”
Kit ordered.

“Roger that. I’m out.”

He made the necessary arrangements with WKB crew for the shipment tomorrow night, then turned his attention to the night’s real mission.

Max opened the panel hiding the silo entrance, then slipped down to the tunnels below. Last night he and Greer explored the powerhouse and the control dome, the hallways to the diesel and water storage tanks, then went east to the antennae chutes. Tonight, he went west inside the tunnel system, heading toward the three missile silos. He knew from Angel’s schematics that each had a propellant terminal and an equipment bay as well as the actual missile silo. He went through the blast locks to the first silo. The missile crib was still intact, though some of the exposed steel ribs were rusting. Same with the second silo.
 

He couldn’t get through the blast door to the third silo. It was secured by a modern biometric panel. Whatever King was running down here, it was kept inside the third silo.
 

Max turned back. The walkway was in bad shape here. Someone had patched it up with steel panels taken from somewhere else in the complex. Odd bits of debris were piled along the way. Pieces of steel, discarded equipment, ancient control panels and computer parts, broken chairs.
 

A sudden noise caught Max’s attention. Something moved up ahead, just out of the range of his flashlight. Maybe some critter found its way inside and was doomed to scurry about until it died of hunger. That thought brought him up short. If creatures were getting in here, there had to be other openings not on Angel’s schematics. He'd get Angel to take a closer look.

He returned to the garage, re-secured the panel, then covered the pit again. He looked at his watch: it was almost 2:00 a.m. He’d been down there for hours. He texted Greer to say he was clear and that he could access all but the third silo suite.

* * *

It had been a simple thing for Hope to slip away from Feral. She’d checked on him at the house—he was out cold on Mads’ futon, the TV still playing.
 

No one had challenged her when she pulled onto the WKB compound—nobody was guarding the gate. She drove slowly down the dirt road that led to the garage, and parked behind it. She could hear the faint sound of music coming from the clubhouse on the other side of the compound. The bikers were more boisterous at night, but they were also self-involved, which worked nicely for her—no one was paying any attention to her.

The building she’d seen the boy enter earlier in the evening was dark. She looked around, making certain no one was around to see her prowling around the compound. She doubted even Mad Dog’s intimidating protection would save her if any of the club members caught her wandering about at night.

She jogged across the open ground to the building Mad Dog said was a school. It wasn’t a very welcoming place for children. She tried the door at the front of the building, but it was locked. She walked around the perimeter. The windows were up high—too high for children to see out of. There was no playground or sports field.
 

Whatever that place was, it wasn’t a school. She pointed her flashlight across the field behind the building. About a hundred yards away, the thick edge of the forest made a forty-foot-high wall.
 

Hope’s shoulders slumped as she turned back to her garage. She’d foolishly hoped she could find Randall tonight. She didn’t even know what she would have said to him, or how she would have convinced him that they were related and that he should leave with her.
 

If someone surprised her with that news, especially in the middle of the night like this, she’d call the police. But this was the WKB compound. No cops were coming here. Tonight’s excursion made her realize she should give some thought to what she was actually going to say when she did meet him.

She was almost to her truck when she heard a bike start up. It wasn’t just any bike: it was Mad Dog’s Panhead. And it was close. Just on the other side of her garage.
 

Was he looking for her? She broke into a run, wanting to get to her truck. If he rode out toward the clubhouse and the main entrance, he wouldn’t see her. But once he returned to his house, he'd know right away that she slipped out. There was no way she could make it back before he did.

God, what was he doing out here tonight?

Mad Dog put his bike in gear and pulled away from the garage. She ran for cover, but not fast enough; his headlight flashed over her as he turned around the corner. He throttled down, spinning the bike to catch her in his headlight again, then stopped and sat there. Hope turned to face the bike. She couldn’t see Mad Dog beyond the glare of the headlamp. Maybe it wasn’t Mad Dog who rode his bike. Whoever it was, he gunned the engine, making it roar with restrained energy.

Hope began to back toward her truck. She sent a look over her shoulder. She was still fifty feet away. She’d never make it there before the bike could get to her. The bike crept forward. Or maybe it sped forward and her mind slowed it down, making her feel every single millisecond leading to her death.
 

The bike turned and parked next to her garage. As soon as the rider dismounted, she knew it was indeed Mad Dog, which did little to calm her panic. She hurried to her truck. He caught up with her in three strides and spun her around, gripping her arm so that she had to stand on tiptoes.

“What are you doing out here?”

She pulled a fortifying breath. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d get a head start on tomorrow’s work.”

“And that’s why you were running around the compound, alone, in the dark, in dark clothes?”

She clamped her mouth shut.

“Where’s Feral?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“He was supposed to be guarding you.”

“Guarding me? You put a guard on me?”

Mad Dog shook his head, then released her. “Forget it.”

“I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d come down and work on some of the bikes that are queued up. Who are you to tell me I can’t do that?”

“My compound, my rules.”

“I didn’t hurt anything. I didn’t bother anyone. I heard a sound over there and went to see what it was.”

He huffed a dry laugh. “Sure you did. You think there’s no cost for your actions? I told you to stay put tonight.”

“What? Are you going to hit me?” She spread her arms. “Try it.”

He shook his head. He pivoted and started back for his bike. “The cost comes out of Feral’s hide. Your actions are going to get him booted from the club.”

Hope hurried around in front of him, walking backwards as he moved forward. “No. Not Feral. He didn’t know.”

“He’s my hang-around. I’m responsible for his actions. If he can’t follow an order, I don’t want him in the club.”

“Mad Dog. Stop.” She pushed against his chest, her puny strength no match for his, but he stopped anyway. “Please. Don’t do this.”

“There is a cost for every decision, Hope.”

“I know. It’s true, there is. Take it out of my hide. Don’t boot Feral. He’s just a kid.”

Max lifted his hand to grip her neck. She felt the hammering of her pulse under the dam of his thumb. His grip tightened as he moved her out of his path. She moved right back in front of him. He bent down to her. “Move aside.”

“You can’t do this to him.”

“I’m not. You did.” He stepped around her and continued on.

“Please. Find another way.” They’d reached his bike. “Please,” she begged in a fervent whisper. “He was hungry. He ate the fruit and my leftovers. He’s just a kid.”

Mad Dog started his bike. “Get on.” She looked back at her truck. “Get. On. Now.” She straddled the bike. “Put the helmet on.” She did, then wrapped her arms around him and held on.
 

They cut across the compound grounds and headed out the main gate. No one stood guard; no one was a witness to the fact that he was headed to do God-knows-what to Feral.

At the house, she hopped off the bike as soon as he parked. He stormed into his cabin, taking the front stairs two at a time. The door slammed behind him. Only a single light illuminated the space, but it was enough for her to see Mad Dog lift Feral off his futon. She held her hands over her mouth as he shouted at Feral, then stood frozen in place as he tossed the kid onto the porch.